Stuyvesant led them straight back toward the conference room. Neagley walked next to Reacher, close by his shoulder in the narrow corridors.

Washington, D.C. , is quiet and empty in the middle of the night and it took just two minutes to reach Neagley’s hotel and only another ten to get back to Froelich’s house. Her street was crowded with parked cars. They looked like they were asleep, dark and still and inert and heavily dewed with cold mist. The Suburban was more than eighteen feet long and they had to go two whole blocks before they found a space big enough for it. They locked it up and walked back together in the chill. Made it to the house and opened the door and stepped inside. The lights were still on. The heating was still running hard. Froelich paused in the hallway.

They got three hours’ sleep and woke up at seven when her alarm started ringing in her own room. It sounded far away and faint through the guest room wall. He was on his back and she was curled under his arm. Her thigh was hooked over his. Her head was resting against his shoulder. Her hair touched his face. He felt comfortable in that position. And warm. Warm and comfortable. And tired. Warm and comfortable and tired enough that he wanted to ignore the noise and stay put. But she struggled free and sat up in the bed, dazed and sleepy.

Armstrong slipped a leather jacket over his sweater and stepped out of his back door. The wind caught his hair and he zipped the coat as he walked to his gate. Two paces before he got there he was picked up in the scope. The scope was a Hensoldt 1.5-6×42 BL originally supplied with a SIG SSG 3000 sniper rifle, but it had been adapted by the Baltimore gunsmith to fit its new home, which was on top of a Vaime Mk2. Vaime was a word registered by Oy Vaimennin Metalli Ab, which was a Finnish weapons specialist that correctly figured it needed a simplified name if it was going to sell its excellent products in the West. And the Mk2 was an excellent product. It was a silenced sniper rifle that used a low-powered version of the standard 7.62 millimeter NATO round. Low-powered, because the bullet had to fly at subsonic speeds to preserve the silence that the built-in suppressor created. And because of the low power and the suppressor’s complex exhaust gas management scheme there was very little recoil. Almost none at all. Just the gentlest little kick imaginable. It was a fine rifle. With a good scope like the Hensoldt it was a guaranteed killer at any range up to two hundred yards. And the man with his eye to the scope was only a hundred and twenty-six yards from Armstrong’s back gate. He knew that for an exact fact, because he had just checked the distance with a laser range finder. He was exposed to the weather, but he was adequately prepared. He knew how to do this. He was wearing a dark green down coat and a black hat made of synthetic fleece. He had gloves made from the same material, with the right-hand fingertips cut off for control. He was lying down out of the wind, which kept his eyes clear of tears. He anticipated absolutely no problems at all.

Neagley was uncharacteristically quiet in the car. Maybe she was worried about the day ahead. Maybe she could sense the altered chemistry. Reacher didn’t know, and either way he wasn’t in a hurry to find out. He just sat quiet while Froelich battled the traffic. She looped northwest and used the Whitney Young bridge across the river and drove past the RFK football stadium. Then she took Massachusetts Avenue and stayed away from the congestion around the government part of town. But Mass. Ave. was slow itself, and it was nearly nine o’clock before they arrived in Armstrong’s Georgetown street. She parked behind another Suburban near the mouth of the tent. An agent stepped off the sidewalk and rounded the hood to talk with her.

They drove back to the office and waited the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. Froelich received regular situation reports. Reacher built up a pretty good picture of how things were organized. Metro cops were stationed outside the Senate Office buildings in cars. Secret Service agents held the sidewalk. Inside the street doors were members of the Capitol’s own police force, one officer manning each metal detector, plenty more patrolling the hallways. Mingled in with them were more Secret Service. The transition business itself took place in upstairs offices with pairs of agents outside every door. Armstrong’s personal detail stayed with him at all times. The radio reports spoke of a fairly static day. There was a lot of sitting around and talking going on. Plenty of deals being made. That was clear. Reacher recalled the phrase smoke-filled rooms, except he guessed nobody was allowed to smoke anymore.

Armstrong took the elevator down from his office and turned a tight left in the lobby. Pushed through an unmarked door that led to a rear exit. He was wearing a raincoat and carrying a briefcase. The corridor behind the unmarked door was a plain narrow space that smelled of janitorial supplies. Some kind of strong detergent cleaner. He had to squeeze past two stacks of cartons. One of the stacks was neat and new, made up from recent deliveries. The other was unsteady and ragged, made up of empty boxes waiting for the trash collector. He turned his body sideways to get past the second pile. Held his briefcase out behind him and led with his right forearm. He pushed open the exit door and stepped out into the cold.

By six-forty there were almost seven hundred guests in the hotel lobby. They formed a long loose line from the street door to the coat check to the ballroom entrance. There was loud excited conversation in the air, and the heady stink of mingling perfumes. There were new dresses and white tuxedos and dark suits and bright ties. There were clutch purses and small cameras in leather cases. Patent shoes and high heels and the flash of diamonds. Fresh perms and bare shoulders and a lot of animation.